Data carriers in which an electronic module is installed are already well known, being used as credit cards, bank cards, cash payment cards and the like in a great variety of service sectors, for example cashless money transfer, or as key cards in the in-house area. The power supply to the electronic module and/or the data exchange with external devices takes place either in contacting fashion via external contact surfaces or in noncontacting fashion, for example inductively via suitable coils in the data carrier.
EP 0 570 062 describes for example a data carrier containing an electronic module communicating in noncontacting fashion and consisting of a coil and an integrated circuit electrically connected therewith. The data carrier includes three card layers disposed one on the other. The middle layer consists of an oval middle part having an opening with the integrated circuit disposed therein and two outer parts which form a frame around the oval part so that a channel containing the coil is present in the data carrier. The outer parts of the middle card layer end flush with the other card layers of the data carrier.
It is relatively difficult to produce such a data carrier with many component parts all having different dimensions since it is difficult to position such component parts.
Another data carrier with an electronic module is known from WO 92/21105. The data carrier consists of several card layers laminated one on the other. One of the core layers has suitable depressions in the form of blind holes for receiving the integrated circuit and the coil electrically connected with the circuit. Although the production of the depressions is not described in any detail, their production is presumably rather elaborate since these card layers generally have a very small thickness.
Starting out from the stated prior art, the invention is therefore based on the problem of proposing a data carrier of the abovementioned type which can be produced in simple fashion particularly with high piece numbers.